The challenge of taking complexity seriously - Second helping

In response to my previous article, The challenge of taking complexity seriously, I received a comment via LinkedIn which implied that there are circumstances in the social world which are not complex. Also that, in those situations in which complexity “persists”, this does not occur randomly but rather is “shaped” and “driven” by a “structure and simple rules”.

My efforts to address these points in a comment were thwarted by a ‘computer-says-no’ message, to the effect that I had exceeded LinkedIn’s word-limit for replies. This brief, ‘follow-up’ article is the result. It was initially published on LinkedIn in May 2017…

Whenever people are involved, the situation is always complex

To begin with, the notion of complexity to which I’m referring starts from the premise that all situations in which people are involved are necessarily and unavoidably complex. That is to say, everything that happens does so solely as a result of people’s ongoing, ‘local’ (i.e. one-to-one and small-group) interactions.

What we think of as ‘outcomes’ emerge from – and come to be recognized as such – through the widespread interplay of these local interactions. This is a self-organizing, patterning process which creates expectancy that things will proceed in certain ways and not in others. At the same time, the potential (although not the likelihood) always exists for shifts to occur spontaneously in the patterning of interaction, and for novelty to emerge through this same interactional process.

It is the characteristic patterning of interaction in a particular context that we sometimes refer to as “culture” – or, indeed, “organization”. It is this ongoing process that gives us the sense of everyday predictability, which enables us to go on together, despite not knowing what will ultimately emerge from our own and everyone else’s ongoing interactions. So, I agree that this does not tend to occur randomly.

It’s not about “simple rules”

This also means that I disagree with the notion that complexity is “driven” in any sense by rules, whether simple or otherwise. This is an idea that has been transferred, directly and uncritically, from the computer-based modelling of natural phenomena, known as Complex Adaptive Systems. It has led to the mistaken belief that people (operating as individual agents) can be similarly ‘programmed’ to act in coherent, predetermined ways by managers applying an equivalent set of “simple rules” to govern their behaviour.

In reality, statements by managers are just one input to the conversational process through which people make sense of the world and take action. Besides formal, structured impositions of this kind, every interaction involves the interplay of differing – and potentially competing – intentions, interpretations, interests, ideologies, identities, individual idiosyncrasies, and so on. It is these dynamics that add to the richness of human interaction – for better and for worse.

People continuously negotiate these differences with others as they (inter)act together into the continuously emerging and unknowable future that they - and everyone else - are co-creating. This underlines the essential interdependence of human beings, in which they simultaneously enable and constrain each other through their ongoing interactions, actions, and inactions. This also means that all interactions, however mundane, are power-related and political.

In short, it’s these uniquely human dynamics that make the social world (such as organization) unavoidably complex – even when things appear obvious and straightforward. And even where things might plausibly be treated as such for practical purposes.